Gods, Hitchhikers and dirt roads

Spent yesterday driving through Valley of the Gods on our way back north. Even more amazing up close. On our way to Capitol Reef we stopped to see the Natural Bridges, including some speed hiking. In Capitol Reef we enjoyed some fresh baked bread, homemade pie and a few short hikes to boot. Beautiful - but after so many days, some of the features of each national site are starting to blur. Capitol Reef had bridges, striped sandstone, and threatening flash floods - much like other places we've been. We even met an old hitchhiker who had taken the bus into the area and walked to the campsite. He wanted a ride to the U-Pick Peaches place. We gave him a lift and saw him multiple times throughout our stay. We ended the visit with dessert at Sunset Point until it started to rain.




We camped in the Dixie National Forest for $9. This morning while heading towards Escalante we passed 4 frantic backcountry campers. They were on a 28 day training course for survival and one of their friends was suffering from kidney failure and needed immediate help. We gave two of them, Ben and Robert, a lift to their training site in Boulder, UT.

At the Escalante Visitor Center, we got some good info from the friendly ranger there. Most roads are inaccessible to us, due to their being closed or only open for 4WD vehicles. There's been lots of rain, and therefore flooding. I was a bit disappointed to hear it, but we made the best of it and went down Hole in the Rock Road to get to Peek-a-Boo and Spooky canyons. We also stopped for a quick tour of Devil's Garden (very different from the one at Arches). We also took the scenic drive on Hell's Backbone, but it was mostly just a drive through forest. The bridge and Christina's speedy driving around tight curves made it pretty exciting though.



We went to the local market to restock some food - and some the same ranger from the Visitor Center there (nice to know we are going where the locals go - not that there's much choice in this town). We are checked in at a fancy campsite with wireless...hence the update.

That's my update for now. I'm off to bed (i.e. sleeping pad in a tent under a tree).

Hot in Utah and a Dip in Arizona

Christina and I freed ourselves from free internet at the Peace Tree cafe in Moab, and returned to Arches for some more hiking. We viewed Delicate Arch from the Lower and Upper viewpoints. I gotta say I wasn't that impressed or psyched for the 1.5 mile trip to get up close to it. But the hike was pretty easy and up close it was a lot cooler. There's a cool bowl near it and a few other interesting formations. I think Devil's Garden was still my favorite, except for the exhausting heat on the way back.

We did some more driving around the park, seeing Balanced Rock and some of the Windows before heading back into town to the Lazy Lizard hostel, just south of the main area of Moab. Plenty of space left. We opted for the nearly empty coed dorms instead of the single occupied female dorm with an older woman who seemed to be examining her coin collection on the floor and talking to herself. A quick dinner at the Slickrock Cafe in town (corner of Main and Center) with a delicious salad (except for the really dry grilled chicken, that I tried moistening with some ketchup from a bottle that wouldn't aim straight) and then we were off back to the hostel for a much needed shower (I could rub the dirt off my legs -- it was disgusting) and sleep. I finally got a good night sleep and slept through past 7 am. Lately, because of outdoor camping, the sun wakes me up around 6:15.

Today we drove to the north entrance of the Canyonlands National Park. Had we known better, we would have gone to the south eastern entrance at the Needles. Instead we ended up at Island in the Sky, did a quick 1 mile rim trail to Grand View, took a quick peak at Green River and then left to return to Moab. We refilled groceries and ice and then continued south on 191 and then 163 to go to Monument Valley. The drive was beautiful. We took a side trip to Newspaper Rock (on the way to the Needles entrance), saw a half dozen deer (and cute spotted babies) grazing on the side of the road, and down further passed Valley of the Gods which was really impressive and continued to the MV visitor center. Unfortunately, they pretty much just had a 17 mile scenic drive on an unpaved road for a $5/person entry fee - which didn't seem worth it in our rented PT Cruiser.



So we turned back round and kept heading south on 163 til we got to Kayenta, AZ. We enjoyed the views of lightning striking behind the distant mountains and even a full arched rainbow during a brief rain. All the rooms at Holiday Inn and Hampton were booked...and the one room at Best Western was out of our price range ($109). The Anasazi Inn 12 miles west was also too much for lack of internet ($88), so we headed back north back to UT. The views during sunset were just amazing. We stopped in Mexican Hat, UT and found a decently priced motel with free wifi (Canyonlands Motel).

Colorado Done, Utah Begun

Again behind on the blogging. We sped through the rest of CO in 4 days - stopping at Maroon Bells near Aspen, driving over Independence Pass to Buena Vista, staying at a campsite in Gunnison, before spending a full day at Black Canyon - both north rim and south rim. We got caught in a fun rain storm while in the south rim, that cut our sightseeing short. We then continued to Ouray, stopping for the night again at a KOA. We enjoyed a chat with the pancake cook - who has spent most of his life traveling, including 11 years around South America once he bought a sailboat. He was quite supportive of our travels.


We then went to Mesa Verde, seeing lots of deer throughout the park and even a gray fox. We drove late into the night during a lightning storm that was fun to watch from a safe distance, to make it into UT in the dark.

We woke up this morning seeing it for the first time and it was clearly a different landscape. We drove 10 more miles to get to Moab, where we stopped at the Visitor Center to get info on our next couple days. We went into Arches - and it was amazing! We did a 5 hour hike through Devil's Garden and are now resting after finishing a couple smoothies in a cafe in town. We're hoping to check in to the Lazy Lizard hostel (highly recommended to us) and doing another hike through Arches.